Having cancer sucks. Without having any experience in that field, I can tell you that it 1000% sucks. I can give you medical facts and statistics to prove my point, but no heartfelt reasons because I don’t know what it is like. I’m just saying what other people say.

Suffering from cancer sucks.

What I can account for though, is that knowing someone who has cancer sucks. I know what that’s like. Having a family member or a friend who happens to have a terminal disease screws you up in ways that cannot even be explained. You watch them degrade in front of you. All the medicine you’ve read about in books actually comes alive. You literally watch the cancer suck the life out of a person.

The first memory I have of us is pretty darn random. It’s me you and this other girl standing in a single file in first grade. We’re arguing about whose turn it is to stand in front because we were all the same height (at the time ugh).

The second most prominent memory I have is of me getting chased by your dog in your apartment. That was a traumatic experience, but I somehow ended up staying over for 3 days. I wore your clothes and shared your bed, and apparently we took bath together.

There’s this place I call home. Its been a constant comfort to me for the past 11 years of my life. It welcomed me when I came from Singapore, it stayed with me when my parents got divorced and it remained when I shifted 3 houses in one year. It was the only thing I looked forward to when I broke up with my boyfriend and the only thing I thought about when my parents fought.